01 August 2007

Well, whaddaya know? The Moondance Diner has been saved. But I'm never going to see it again. Because it's going to Wyoming!

La Barge, Wyoming, to be exact, population 493. Vincent and Cheryl Pierce bought it from the American Diner Museum, that wishful-thinking, Rhode Island-based nonprofit museum-without-a-home. It was actually given to the ADM by Extell Development, which is developing the site where the Moondance sat in Soho. Nice of Extell. Why the museum sold what would be the prize possession of its tiny collection, I don't know. No place to keep it, I guess.

Anyway, I like this comment in the Sun article by the executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation: "It's an indication that the real estate market in New York, and particularly in Manhattan, is so superheated that anything that doesn't dedicate itself to the super luxury market does not seem to be able to survive."

2 comments:

The Moondance Diner contributed to the beauty and magic of the neighborhood. I have come to this area almost every Sunday since I re-discovered Our Lady of Vilnius in November of 2004. I saw both of these buildings as kindred; aesthetic family members in different lines of business. As The Archdiocese prepares Our Lady of Vilnius for the demolition that we are fighting, the Moondance Diner moves on to its new incarnation. What will be worth seeing from the windows of all these new condos? Where will the people eat and pray? Is current taste so uniform that no one else values the beauty of these places?

The original, running Jeremiad on the vestiges of Old New York as they are steamrolled under or threatened by the currently ruthless real estate market and the City Fathers' disregard for Gotham's historical and cultural fabric. Est. January 2006.Contact Me

About Me

I have lived in New York City since 1988 and earn my bread as a writer. I began this blog in January 2006. Beyond that, don't be so nosy.
"I am not a pessimist; to perceive evil where it exists is, in my opinion, a form of optimism."
—Roberto Rossellini